Drift blinks. "Oh. Huh." Even shorter than he thought. Now that's hard to get your head around. He vents out a half-sigh, half-laugh, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand.
"That's...a complicated question. It started out as a revolution against a government that rigidly assigned its citizens to castes based on what they could transform into. A society like that leaves behind more people than it lifts up. A worker in the mines, lowest of the low in a Functionist world, wrote a treatise against the system, arguing in favor of nonviolent protest -- the seed of the Decepticon movement. As in, you are being deceived." Drift's cheerful expression flickers slightly, but he doesn't miss a beat. "But as his movement gained momentum, he saw that there could be no peaceful reform, only a violent revolution. Overthrow the government and bring about a new world order, one in which your social worth wasn't derived from what you were forged or made with. But he started to lose his way -- it started to be less about revolution and more about conquest. Not just a new world order for Cybetronians, but for all races throughout the galaxy. The war spread far, far beyond Cybertron, taking countless worlds with it, and then, after a while, it became about control. A struggle for dominance between the Decepticons and the Autobots, who had started as an arm of that oppressive government and then splintered when it became aware of the corruption on all sides, upholding the ideals of freedom and justice that the Decepticons had lost sight of. We fought over a lot of things -- they just kept changing. Maybe that's why it lasted so long."
He spreads his own arms in a shrug and gives Shepard a wry smile. "What does anyone fight a war over?"
no subject
"That's...a complicated question. It started out as a revolution against a government that rigidly assigned its citizens to castes based on what they could transform into. A society like that leaves behind more people than it lifts up. A worker in the mines, lowest of the low in a Functionist world, wrote a treatise against the system, arguing in favor of nonviolent protest -- the seed of the Decepticon movement. As in, you are being deceived." Drift's cheerful expression flickers slightly, but he doesn't miss a beat. "But as his movement gained momentum, he saw that there could be no peaceful reform, only a violent revolution. Overthrow the government and bring about a new world order, one in which your social worth wasn't derived from what you were forged or made with. But he started to lose his way -- it started to be less about revolution and more about conquest. Not just a new world order for Cybetronians, but for all races throughout the galaxy. The war spread far, far beyond Cybertron, taking countless worlds with it, and then, after a while, it became about control. A struggle for dominance between the Decepticons and the Autobots, who had started as an arm of that oppressive government and then splintered when it became aware of the corruption on all sides, upholding the ideals of freedom and justice that the Decepticons had lost sight of. We fought over a lot of things -- they just kept changing. Maybe that's why it lasted so long."
He spreads his own arms in a shrug and gives Shepard a wry smile. "What does anyone fight a war over?"